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About Joyce Clark

Contact information for Councilmember Joyce Clark
Home: 623-772-9795
Cell: 602-320-3422
Office: 623-930-2249
Please call between the hours of 9 AM - 5 PM
Email:
clarkjv@aol.com
jclark@glendaleaz.com
Joyce Clark is a 49 year resident of Glendale. She has a BA in History and Education and graduated from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. Her past careers include teacher of high school history, small business ownership of a book store, a professional ceramist and was the founder of a retail craft gallery. Joyce and her husband, Charles, have three children and seven grandchildren.

Joyce was first elected as your Yucca district Councilmember in 1992 and served Glendale and the Yucca district from 1992 to 1996. Joyce took a four year break from public service when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s to personally care for her. In 2000 she successfully ran again for Yucca district councilmember as a write in candidate against the incumbent. She is the only candidate in Arizona to achieve a write in victory over an incumbent. She was your voice for the Yucca district for 16 years.

Joyce retired in December, 2012, and as a private citizen Joyce did many of the things she never had the time to pursue. Two of those are the tender care and feeding of her koi pond and blog writing on issues in Glendale, Arizona.

In March of 2016, Joyce announced that she would leave retirement and run for the Yucca district council seat in Glendale. Once again Joyce defeated an incumbent and on December 13, 2016 she took office as the Yucca district councilmember for another four year term, ending in December of 2020.

Joyce is the only elected official in the State of Arizona to have defeated an incumbent as a write-in candidate and then to defeat a second, different incumbent as a candidate.

I have watched nearly every Coyotes game this season. The St. Louis Blues game on March 2, 2014 was positively painful as the team disintegrated in the third period and blew a lead. Does that suddenly make me an expert? Gosh, far, far from it. Yet even the most uneducated fan recognizes the team’s lack of consistency from game to game. In one game they are brilliant. In the next it’s as if they don’t know each other. What seems to be happening now is more than a lack of consistency. It’s as if a malaise has settled over the team destroying its chemistry.

Everyone has assumed since 2009 that stable ownership would offer certainty to the players and would remove the team’s collective anxiety causing them to play with more confidence. Yet in 2012 while under the ownership of the League’s front office and with no ownership surety the team made the play offs and won the divisional title. Is throwing money at the problem the solution? Don Maloney and Dave Tippett operated on a shoe string that year and pulled it off. They had no choice. They were magicians.

In the face of disappointing team play this year, the year of stable ownership, ffn the face of disappointing team play nce. Yetary 28, 2014 game against the Colorado Avalanched acquire new ones. hat was it wian chirping has begun – but in a subdued fashion as no one wants to anger or alienate the new owners. The collective fan solution seems to be to get rid of some players and acquire new ones. Candidates identified after the February 28, 2014 loss to the Colorado Avalanche are Schlemko, Stone, Riberio and Smith. The team’s core has remained intact throughout the years of uncertain ownership drama – Doan, Hanzel,Virbrata, Bissonette, and Yandle, to name a few. Instead of removing and replacing players the real question is, what has happened mentally and collectively to this core? There is evident frustration and anger. Witness some of Doan’s public remarks about the team’s abysmal play. One would think it has spilled over into the locker room – oh, to be a fly on THAT wall.

It’s too late to right the ship this year. Maloney and Tippett have to identify the mental poison and apply the antidote. That takes time. Unfortunately this year’s poor showing will affect the bleeding bottom line of the owners and of the City of Glendale. How long can either entity sustain the financial loss? In the case of the owners they would have you believe it’s not a problem for them but it most certainly is for Glendale. Glendale entered into the ownership deal relying upon the new owners’ promise to partially reimburse (the estimate was $9 million) the city for the management fee of $15 million a year through “enhanced revenues.” All estimates are that this figure will not be met – not even close to it.

On a different note: The owners just hosted Jewish Heritage Night. Great. I would expect to see Christian, Muslim and Buddhist Heritage Nights as well. If there is no recognition of other faiths, don’t we call that discrimination in this country?

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Ms. McLellan has been perhaps the only reporter covering the Coyotes who remained unbiased and reported on them impartially throughout the entire 4 year saga of seeking an owner for the team. As she looks to the Coyotes’ future she makes some excellent observations. Among them, “The Coyotes just believed they needed the presence of ownership to get there (Stanley Cup). And now that they have that, it’s time to prove they can be better.” Or, “That challenge should bring pressure. This is a new era for the organization, one without the safety net of low expectations and ready-made excuses for failure.” She’s right. For the past four years the team could always point to ownership uncertainty as a reason for not quite getting beyond the next level. That mind set is no longer relevant. They will stand or fall based upon their cohesiveness and talents as a team. As Tippett says, “You have to build a core to continue the identity of that team to see if you can push it as far as you can.” Don Maloney and Dave Tippett, magicians that they are, have done exactly that.

As McLellan says, the ownership limbo “masked the pitfalls of a bargain-basement budget…” The new owners, IceArizona, have to date shown their willingness to revitalize this team and this franchise. That commitment will continue to require a steep price tag over the next few years by renewing contracts of their core players so that as Maloney and Tippett have said it does not remain a team continually in flux. Their current advertising campaign, “Hungrier than ever,” is good. While it connects with the fan base steeped in the team’s history, it misses the mark in connecting emotionally with new fans. Retaining a family friendly atmosphere at the arena that does not require highly visible boobs ala the Jerry Moyes era or young ladies cleaning ice and getting new concessionaires with better fare and prices that do not sky-rocket into the stratosphere are backbone components that will help to attract new fans, especially families. The other traditional sports, baseball, basketball and football offer ticket prices, with the exception of their occasional promotions, that do little to encourage continual and regular family participation. Yet it obviously will be family participation grows the next generation of hockey fans.

Ms. McLellan’s observation that the excuse of lack of ownership can be relied upon for the team’s quality of play coupled with ownership uncertainty are gone for good. As Sarah McLellan says, “The Coyotes failed at failing.” Now they must succeed at winning.

FAIR USE NOTICEThis site contains copyrighted material the use of which has. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Just listened to KTAR 620 radio interview with Mike Nealy, COO of the Phoenix Coyotes. He is a class act as is Don Maloney, General Manager and Dave Tippett, Head Coach. We are very fortunate to have these men running the organization. They are the right men for the right time.

Dave Tippett

Heard on some hockey board there are questions as to whether I am writing this blog and that perhaps it is being “ghosted.” For all those speculators out there, I am indeed writing this blog and couldn’t be happier in the freedom I now have to express myself…unfiltered.